Your CYA Study Abroad Experience begins before you leave home

CYA constantly strives to make the Study Abroad Experience an enriching and happy one. This begins with taking out much of the guess work involved in preparing to live and study abroad. We provide a wealth of useful pre-departure materials designed to ensure your study abroad passage is a smooth one. The thorough pre-departure and post-arrival orientation schedule also helps prepare you for what to expect and allows you to get ready for a period of adjustment.

Our dedicated staff from our North American office offer every student personalized guidance from the application stage to departure. Indeed, our supportive warm and enthusiastic approach continues every step of-the-way with expert on-site staff including our executive director of student affairs who has over 20 years of guidance experience, available daily to help you cope with homesickness or culture shock. There are periodic appointments available with an additional therapist. There is also a faculty academic advisor to help you with any academic questions or concerns.

Some of the great pre-departure tools we offer include:

Pre-departure webinars

We provide a VISA webinar before each semester to better guide you through the VISA application process. Additionally, our detailed pre-departure orientation webinars cover:

• Preparing to leave
• What to expect on arrivals day
• Living in Athens (health, safety, culture, daily life, academics)
• Q&A Session

Guides

The accepted students’ pages on our website also include the following essential guides:

• Pre-Departure Handbook
• Mobile Phone Guide
• Academic Calendar, which includes the dates of the trips
• PowerPoint presentation with useful information, links and photos

Connect with an Ambassador

We offer you the opportunity to connect directly with a CYA student ambassador to learn about their time in Greece, ask any questions or pick up some helpful tips. We can connect you with a CYA ambassador from your school or with someone who has a similar major or interests.

CYA ambassadors are alumni of our program who have already gone through this experience and want to share their CYA story with future students just like you!

Social Media Networking & YouTube Tutorials

We also offer tips and ideas for things you can plan ahead outside your study time, including step by step YouTube tutorials about public transport and Athens apartments. Furthermore, before the beginning of each semester we create a private dedicated Facebook group in which you can use as an open forum to ask any questions, introduce yourself, share information & ideas on travel, events and to connect with fellow peers and CYA staff prior to departure and throughout the semester.

Most of all, we encourage you to contact us directly and keep us updated on the process, so we can help as much as possible along the way. CYA makes it as easy as possible to kick-start the study abroad process in Greece!

Our website provides detailed information on the variety of pre-departure and student support services we provide: Link here . Read more about our post-arrival orientation program here.

You can also contact our North American Office directly by telephone: 617-868-8200  or email us at: info@cyathens.org